Hey, this is great information. My wife and I spent the bulk of our honeymoon in the US about 6 years ago now. We knew of tipping, but couldn't understand how it worked, or why it was important, especially for waiters/waitresses. We were actually lucky - the first 'waited' restaurant we went to we were served by a lovely young girl who was really helpful. I just asked her flat out, how does tipping work, and she explained it to us, including the 10, 12 and 15% levels. She was such a great help that we tipped her 20% just to say thanks, because in reality, she probably saved us a lot in tips in the time were were there!
We also struggled with who we were supposed to tip. For example, the housecleaners who worked at the hotels we stayed in. We didn't think we had to , but then someone said we probably should. I think we ended up just dumping some cash in tip jars at places where we were given service.
It seems kind of abhorrent that your government is happy to just let servers be paid such a poor hourly rate. It's not really worth getting out of bed for. I could scour the streets of my neighbourhood and find enough bottles and cans to make more than that each hour. In my state, we get 10c back for each bottle, can, and some cartons we take to recycling centres. Not a bad deal if you are into saving any cans and bottles you use!
Glad it was helpful! You know, to this day even I'm still unsure of exactly what the protocol is for tipping your housekeepers in a hotel. I generally only do it if I'm staying multiple nights, and then I usually leave a $5 or a $10. But yeah I have no idea, haha.
We stayed 16 nights in one in NY, and we happened to see one of the housekeepers after about 4 nights. I hate carrying loose change (the US uses a lot more coins (currency varieties) than we do in Aus - although I would rather go back to a $1 note), so I was using one of the hotel's paper coffee cups to store it all in. She asked me if it was a tip, or not, so I promptly moved it into the safe.
After another couple of nights, someone mentioned, or we heard, I can't remember, about tipping housekeepers. I couldn't get a straight answer from anyone (I guess you're not alone in mot really being sure!), so I continued to keep all of my loose change.
On our last night, I counted it all up, and it totalled to about $83, if I remember correctly (minus one of each coin for a souvenir), so we topped it up to $100 with notes and left (the by then three) coffee cups, and a letter thanking the housekeepers for keeping our room as tidy as possible before we departed for the airport.
I think that was a great gesture! I'm sure it made their day. One of these days I will figure out what the proper protocol is...
I kind of like how they do it on cruise ships - they set a baseline tip that's automatically paid, and you can choose to adjust it up or down at the end of your cruise. I think it goes to your room steward, your waiter, and one or two others.
We ended up leaving with the understanding that basically anyone in the service industry was up for a tip. If they helped you in some way by making your experience better, then you could choose to tip them. Some on the pushy side got nothing from me. Those open roof double-decker tour busses in NY - most of the people running them got nothing - they would basically wave a tip jar in your face. We did get one guide who was so helpful - I gave him about 25%. He was so grateful, so I gave him another couple of singles, just because.
If you have to tip, then, yes, you're right. Cruise ships do it really well. But then payment systems on those are linked to your card which is a bit difficult to do across different businesses in a country!